In the May 11 & 25 SN: High-tech cricket farming, AI learns from Minecraft, looking for lithium, a new hominid species is named, signs of life in dead pig brains, Cherokee cave texts decoded, water molecules on the moon and more.

The U.S. government will test various foods for exposure to glyphosate, the active ingredient in several herbicides.

Tests on foods including soybeans, corn, milk and eggs are set to begin this year, says Food and Drug Administration spokesperson Lauren Sucher. In 2014, the Government Accountability Office called on the FDA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to strengthen their...

WASHINGTON — Many people have turned to electronic cigarettes in hopes of avoiding the heart and cancer risks associated with smoking conventional tobacco products. But vaping appears far from benign, a trio of toxicologists reported February 11 and 12 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting.

European whales and dolphins may be at risk of extinction from the effects of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, a team of researchers recently reported in Scientific Reports. Concentrations of PCBs in killer whales and bottlenose and striped dolphins, they found, were high enough to cause health damage.

PCBs have been banned in Europe, the United States and many other places for...

A popular alternative to bisphenol A isn’t as benign as people had thought, at least not in lab animals.

After a growing body of research identified hormone-mimicking effects from BPA — a compound found in some plastics, dental sealants and cash register receipts — consumers began reaching for BPA-free products. But there is now evidence that at least one of the chemical substitutes...

For some toxic air pollutants, more can get into the body through the skin than via breathing, new human data indicate.

The natural assumption is that inhalation is the primary route by which air pollutants invade the body. Each breath delivers those chemicals to the blood, which courses through the lungs’ tiniest airways. But the body’s biggest organ is the skin, and recent studies show...

There’s no doubt air pollution is a killer, causing more than 3 million deaths worldwide each year. But the top culprits behind the deadly air may come as a surprise.

Particles from small-scale energy use, mainly household fires for cooking and heating, are the leading cause of air-pollution deaths in many areas of Asia, researchers report in the Sept. 17 Nature. But in the northeastern...

After smoke stacks and industrial waste, researchers can add lounging seals to the list of mercury polluters.

Hair from Northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) is loaded with the toxic metal. And when shed, that hair can boost mercury levels in surrounding seawater by about 17 times, researchers report September 7 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Handling grocery receipts may cost extra — at least in terms of health risks, a new study suggests.

Two chemicals in receipt paper that replace the toxic compound bisphenol A, or BPA, are just as capable of soaking into the human body as their predecessor, researchers report August 25 in Environmental Health Perspectives. The study marks the first time that one of the two compounds,...

Honeybees were into probiotics way before they were cool, a new study suggests.

The hipster insects serve up beneficial bacteria that may help baby bees develop a healthy blend of gut microbes, researchers report online August 7 in Applied and Environmental Microbiology. Without those thriving gut communities, the critical pollinators may have trouble digesting their plant-based food....